


In the Spirit of Christmas

by accordingtomel



Category: Merlin (TV) RPF
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Christmas Party, First Kiss, Fluff, M/M, Mistletoe, Scheming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-13
Updated: 2017-04-13
Packaged: 2018-10-18 06:30:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10611189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/accordingtomel/pseuds/accordingtomel
Summary: Katie and Angel are up to their usual mischief, which can only spell trouble for Bradley and Colin. After all, what better place for pulling pranks and schemes than at a Christmas party where there is access to free alcohol?





	

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on my LJ in December of 2010. This is so ridiculously self-indulgent I'm almost embarrassed to be posting it. Again. (LOL!)
> 
> **Original A/N:** I wrote this for lemniciate and kylezy’s [Bradley/Colin Comment Fest](http://lemniciate.livejournal.com/51143.html). This version has been edited, partially re-written, and betaed by my awesome friend adelagia. Any other mistakes are my own though. Thanks for reading!

In retrospect, the whole situation isn’t actually all that surprising. In fact, Bradley knows he probably should have seen this coming. After all, what better place for pulling pranks and schemes than at a Christmas party where there is access to unlimited free alcohol, in a relatively swanky hotel in London? Especially when this is the first time in all three years that Angel, Katie _and_ Colin have been around to actually attend. Of course, that should only spell trouble for Bradley. Naturally.

He thinks he should have known, when Katie had gestured to both him and Colin from across the room, that she had some sort of agenda on her mind. Of course they’ve all been drinking, but Katie and Angel in particular have been at it for most of the night, and an inebriated Katie is one that often develops fantastical ideas and, believing that they are brilliant, acts on them. It rarely fares well for anyone involved.

So when Katie and Angel take a purposeful step backwards once they’re all together and point at the ceiling with matching grins, Bradley can only imagine what he and Colin will find.

“Mistletoe?” He folds his arms and gives the girls a pointed look. “ _Really_?”

“Come on,” Katie says with a wicked smirk, “It’ll be fun.”

“For who? _You_?”

“Well, we’ll certainly enjoy it, but hopefully not as much as you two.”

Angel seems to find this hilarious as she hides a laugh behind her hand. She and alcohol are a bad mix, Bradley remembers, particularly when Katie is around. He tries hard not to roll his eyes. This is a terrible idea for so many reasons.

Turning to Colin, Bradley seeks some help in the form of his co-torture victim. “Colin? What do you have to say about all of this?”

He feels he does a smashing job of pretending as though he’s not highly invested in Colin’s answer.

“I would say that they’ve clearly had too much to drink and have gone mad,” Colin concludes, after a lengthy pause. He’s smiling, but Bradley can sense the slight hesitation and nervousness radiating from him.

“Exactly! Thank you, mate. You’ve proven my point.”

“All right, stop trying to avoid the inevitable and get to the snogging already,” Katie commands, pointing a finger at each of them in turn.

“Yeah. We haven’t got all night, you know,” Angel says.

Bradley catches Colin’s eye then, and before he can talk himself out of it, he leans in and presses a quick kiss to Colin’s cheek. As he pulls back, he does a quick check to make sure no one was watching them, but the only noises seem to be emanating from the girls.

“There? Are you satisfied now?” Bradley demands, casting a quick glance at Colin before returning his attention to Katie and Angel. Thankfully, it doesn’t appear as if Colin’s about to run away.

“That wasn’t a real kiss. You cheated,” Katie says, pasting on an exaggerated pout.

Obviously Bradley is having none of that. “Of course it was real! A kiss is a kiss. There are no rules governing what _kind_ of kiss it has to be.” He throws his arms up in demonstration, nearly smacking Colin in the process.

Angel snorts. “I’ve kissed my _grandmother_ with more passion than that.”

“Yeah, that doesn’t count. Do it again,” Katie orders.

“You’re not actually serious, are you? I mean, this is the most ridiculous set-up I’ve ever seen.”

She simply folds her arms and smiles smugly. “Set-up or not, it’s the rules. You have to snog. For _real_. You can’t break the mistletoe rules.”

“Yeah, it wouldn’t be in the spirit of Christmas,” Angel adds, oh so helpfully, and then giggles like a school girl.

Both of Bradley’s eyebrows shoot up his forehead in disbelief. “Mistletoe rules? The rules can sod off, as far as I’m concerned.” His tone is still light, but there is a quality of frustration to the words.

He doesn’t know why, exactly, but he’s feeling distinctly irritated at this whole situation all of a sudden. He knows that Katie has no knowledge of his real feelings for Colin, but perhaps it stems from the fact that she is constantly pulling stunts like this, almost as if attempting to push things along at her own speed instead of their own. Or perhaps it’s because they’re in public, at a _Merlin_ Christmas party no less, and even though no one is paying them any attention, this isn’t exactly how he pictured the whole thing happening. Maybe he still has no idea how Colin will react and doesn’t particularly fancy the idea of being rejected in front of Katie and Angel. But whatever the reason, he finds himself annoyed all the same.

Unsurprisingly, Colin’s the only one who seems to pick up on it.

He reaches out a hand to touch Bradley’s arm, looking shy and even more uncomfortable than usual, but he still smiles reassuringly in spite of everything he must be feeling. “Bradley, it’s fine. It’s not the end of the world. Let’s just get it over with and then they’ll shut up about it, yeah?”

“You’d best listen to him,” Katie says, nodding sagely.

“Don’t push them, Katie,” Angel quietly urges from Katie’s side, but a smile tugs at her lips all the same. “They need to get ready for the big moment.”

“Colin—”

But Colin merely shakes his head, leaning in slightly. The movement makes Bradley’s breath hitch in his throat, and his gaze unconsciously slips to stare at Colin’s lips – his soft, full, pink lips that Bradley has imagined kissing far too many times to be considered healthy—

“Bradley, it’s all right. Just a couple of mates under the mistletoe, yeah?” Colin says quietly, interrupting his train of thought, and Bradley nearly jumps out of his skin. He hasn’t had nearly enough to drink yet this evening to make this feel less awkward.

Swallowing heavily, he attempts to slow his racing heart, shove down the anticipation he feels welling up inside at the prospect of kissing Colin. 

“C’mon, Bradley,” Katie continues to encourage from the sidelines. “You have no choice. The mistletoe is waiting.”

Bradley glances at Colin, up at the mistletoe, over at Katie, then back at Colin, and he makes a decision.

“This is completely absurd,” he says, throwing his arms up in the air. “I’m not doing this. Let’s go, Colin.”

And in a flash, he storms out of the room, dragging a perplexed Colin behind him. Honestly, who do those two think they are, trying to manipulate them like this? Sure, somewhere in that drunken haze, they probably believe they’re doing them a favour, but they should also know by now that this is not the way to do it.

They hurry out of the dining hall, past the open bar and the restrooms, and keep walking until they find an empty corridor. Bradley stops, releasing Colin’s arm, and turns away from him, running both hands through his hair.

When he turns back around, Bradley finds Colin watching him curiously, as though he is waiting for Bradley to say something. Which, in all fairness, is a reasonable expectation to have, given the fact that Bradley’s just dragged Colin away from the party without any sort of explanation. In truth, though, he has yet to figure out what, exactly, his next move is. So instead, he does nothing.

Colin breaks the silence when it becomes apparent that Bradley has no plans to do so.

“Bradley, are you all right?” he asks.

“Yes.”

Colin doesn’t look as if he believes him, but thankfully doesn’t press the issue. “What happened back there?”

Folding his arms across his chest protectively, Bradley averts his gaze to the patterned carpet of the hotel floor. “I don’t know. I just couldn’t do... _that_ in front of Katie and Angel.”

“It was just a little mistletoe. Nothing to be upset about,” Colin says, voice gentle. He takes a step closer to Bradley. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

“It does to me,” Bradley admits softly as heat crawls up the back of his neck.

A beat passes, and then, “Why?” There is a hopeful quality to Colin’s voice, and Bradley isn’t sure what to make of that.

What he does know for certain, however, is that this is a conversation that he does not want to have right now. This was supposed to be a fun Christmas party with the cast and crew, not a revelation of Bradley’s long-lasting and deep-seated crush on Colin. Again, he silently curses the girls for bringing this all to the surface right now, when he isn’t ready for it.

Colin takes another step closer to Bradley, and when Bradley glances up finally, he is startled at how close they are to one another. Bradley’s back is nearly pressed against one wall, and Colin is hovering in his personal space.

“Why does it mean something to you, Bradley?”

His warm breath tickles the side of Bradley’s face, and much to his embarrassment, Bradley shivers. Very obviously. Colin leans in closer, pressing one palm against the wall at Bradley’s left shoulder, and Bradley involuntarily lets out a little gasp of surprise. He’s having a bit of a hard time concentrating on the question all of a sudden.

“It means something to me because—” Bradley closes his eyes momentarily and takes a steadying breath. He never intended to reveal his feelings for Colin like this, but he’s already in way too deep to back out now. “Because I always imagined that when I kissed you, it wouldn’t be in front of an audience. Because I think kissing under the mistletoe is nothing more than silly tradition. Because I didn’t want you to think that the first time I kissed you was because I _had_ to, but because I _wanted_ to.”

He trails off then, and mentally braces himself for the laughter or the ridicule he expects to hear from such a sickeningly sentimental admission, or for Colin to pull away and rush off back to the party, all awkward and uncomfortable, but neither is forthcoming.

When Bradley finally permits himself to open his eyes again, he is met with the sight of Colin grinning stupidly at him, still way too close for comfort. But there is no mistaking the way his eyes keep darting down to Bradley’s lips, and the thought makes his stomach flip and heat pool hot in his belly.

When Colin speaks, his voice is low. “Do you want to kiss me?”

Bradley feels a smile touch his lips. “If you haven’t figured that out by now—”

But the rest of the words promptly die in Bradley’s throat as Colin’s mouth descends on his. Bradley smiles into the kiss, tilting his head to the side to slot their mouths together even more perfectly, as his fingers thread into the hair at the nape of Colin’s neck, pulling him in closer. Colin parts his lips, and Bradley accepts the invitation to explore, tongue plunging into the delicious heat of Colin’s mouth. At his back, he feels a hand sneak under his shirt as Colin’s fingers splay across his lower back, the other hand gripping Bradley’s hip firmly. There are tongues and teeth and lips and hands, and it’s experimental and careful, but also exciting and possessive, as if they are claiming each other through the movement of their lips alone. The kiss is sweet and slow, yet hot and wonderful, and Bradley never wants this feeling – this moment – to end.

Unfortunately it does, to the sound of two high-pitched squeals, and Colin pries his lips from Bradley’s with far less speed than would seem reasonable for the situation, as they turn in unison to the source of the sound, still tangled up in one another.

“I _knew_ it would work!” Katie exclaims, beaming like a kid on Christmas morning as she glances back and forth between Bradley and Colin, and Angel. “I told you it would work, didn’t I, Angel?”

“You did!” Angel says brightly, turning a content smile on them. “I’m so happy for you.”

“Thanks,” Colin says coyly, face red but with a wide grin.

“Did you follow us here?” Bradley accuses, but any anger he had earlier has dissipated entirely.

“We just needed to know what happened. We’re sorry,” Angel admits, having the decency to at least look contrite about interrupting them.

“I can’t believe how perfectly this worked out. I am a pure genius,” Katie muses, mostly to herself, it would seem.

The four of them stare at one another for several long moments before Bradley finally coughs.

“So, now that you have your answer…”

Angel blinks in confusion. “What?”

“We were sort of in the middle of something…” Bradley gestures between himself and Colin and wiggles both eyebrows suggestively, which causes Colin to snort in amusement.

“Oh. _Oh._ Right, of course,” Angel says, embarrassed. She reaches for Katie’s arm. “Come on, let’s go. We’ve had our fun.”

Katie seems reluctant at first, but somehow Angel manages to drag her away, promising to make up some story to tell people, should anyone inquire when they get back to the party.

“So, uh, I guess your enthusiasm earlier means that we’re on the same page here...?” Bradley asks, once the girls are finally out of sight.

Colin’s hand continues to lightly trace the skin at his lower back, smiling warmly. “Yeah, I think that’s a safe assumption to make.”

And Bradley makes a mental note to send both Katie and Angel an extra Christmas gift this year as he leans in to kiss Colin once again.


End file.
